Roots around my Ribcage
by TheHarleyQueen
Summary: "Hanahaki Disease, which originated in East Asia, is a fatal disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love," the Faerie Godmother told them when they were thirteen and sitting in health class, "The symptoms of the disease are generally recognised as strong pain, flowers blooming in the heart and lungs, and, obviously, coughing them up."


_**A note or two:**_

 _ **This story makes Maleficent (2014) part of Descendants cannon.**_

 _ **It is also to tide you over while I work on the next story of the Seven Deadly Sins 'verse, about which I'm thrilled to announce the title which you can look forward** **to:** ** No Retreat, No Surrender.**_

 _ **I hope you enjoy it.**_

 _ **Whipped Cream & Other Delights,**_  
 _ **TheHarelyQueen**_

* * *

 **ROOTS AROUND MY RIBCAGE**

Ben was nine-years-old when he fell in love, even though it took him four years to realise it.

" _You made flowers grow in my lungs, and although they are beautiful, I can't fucking breathe."_

His father had taken him to see the Looking Glass. It was hung up in a private hall in the city centre and allowed the citizens of Auaradon to watch as their enemies fell to pieces, captured behind a magick barrier. He was the last of his friends to be taken to see it. Audrey had been going with her parents for the last year, once every month at least, and the Charming shed been taking Chad since he was _four_. Even Doug and Lonnie had been once or twice.

When he walked into the ante-chamber, he brushed past Audrey. She had a vindictive smile on her face { _he'd never seen her look so cruel. He didn't like it_ }. But when their gazes met, her face softened, and she reached out to brush his shoulder a touch of comfort that warmed his limbs and ran through to his heart. He approached the gilded mirror that had belonged to the Evil Queen.

The Looking Glass was used by heroes to show their children what could become of them, to show them the _consequences_ of evil. And there was one villain, the greatest of them all, that was a parent's favourite example.

" _Maleficent._ "

The mirror didn't show him the horned mistress of all evil.

Rather, the picture that faded onto the mirror was one of a girl, close in age to him, with purple hair and a scuffed leather jacket that was far too big for her (it belonged to her mother, who she idolised { _and it was the warmest jacket the family owned, so her mother was more than willing to let her keep it_ }). The girl was running through a ramshackle marketplace, clutching a loaf of bread and a bottle of rum. He wanted to watch, to see if she would escape, but his dad just rolled his eyes and dialled a number. "Disruption in Sector 3B-7 Block 5," he told the man on the other end, and shot Ben an apologetic smiled before rephrasing his request to _Maleficent the First_.

The woman Ben saw wasn't what he expected, especially not after seeing her vivacious daughter. Pale beyond comparison, with green eyes that stared forlornly out a window. She wasn't wearing the iconic cowl that the stories told of, and so her caramel hair lay in untamed knots on her shoulder. The horns that sprouted from her head were made of dark ivory, he'd been told, and when he glanced the sharp point, his breath caught in wonder. He could vaguely see her greatest _personal effects_ { _wings weren't considered to be part of a faerie under Auradonian law_ } that King Stephan had cut off to save her life. She didn't look like she could bend the forces of evil to her will, she just looked sad.

Then, a sharp knock sounded at the door. She rose gracefully and strode over briskly, pulling the door open and glaring at what she saw: an Auradonian peacekeeper, holding the _other_ Maleficent by the neck, even though she was handcuffed. She didn't have the bread and bottle anymore, Ben noticed. Maleficent pulled her daughter inside as soon as she was free of the cuffs. The girl looked at her mother tearfully, and that was the moment Ben's papa pulled him away. But not before he heard the Queen of the Moors whisper to her daughter,

"Now, Mal, dry your tears, and let me take a look at that black eye."

 _Mal_ , he thought, blinking as he stepped into the sunlight outside the municipal building, _I'd very much like to meet you one day_.

He spat out a flower petal that had fallen into his mouth.

 _Primrose_.

* * *

It was a short six months later when his papa took him to the Looking Glass again. There had been a disturbance on the Isle and his dad was taking him to learn how to do damage control { _make way for the sixteen-year-old king of Auradon!_ }.

 _An explosion_ was what the most recent forensics said. An explosion of epic proportions, with no trace of evidence. _Almost like magick_ , but there was no magick on the Isle of the Lost.

This time, his dad didn't say a name. He asked the mirror for Sector 3B-7 Block 2. And when the picture cleared… well, Ben had never seen anything like it. It may once have been a market, he decided, but it would be a stretch to call it anything like that now. Scorch marks covered the walls (of which there weren't much left) and entire stalls had been flung apart. Decimated goods lined the streets and guys in blue uniforms and gold visors sifted through the rubble. Scientists crouched on the streets, and Ben wasn't quite certain what they were looking for.

His dad walked him through three blocks, occasionally giving instructions into his phone that Ben would then _see_ being carried out. When they reached the origin of the blast, though (Sector 3B-7 Block 5) his dad knelt down and spoke to him softly. "Now, Ben, this is going to be scary, but it's something I need you to see. I need to prepare you for your kingly duties," he turned back to the screen and allowed Ben to see the destruction.

There were green flames burning on water and brick alike. But that wasn't what was scary. There were _bodies_. Five that ben could clearly see, light blue uniforms half blown off but golden visors immaculate. They were burnt beyond recognition though, and Ben wanted to turn away and throw up. He didn't, not until he saw the woman in the center of it all, in the middle of the green flames but perfectly fine. Her hair was whipping around her face and caught in her horns, and her eyes were staring straight ahead, unseeing. She was floating several feet above the ground, but it wasn't her wings keeping her in the air. She was terrifying and magnificent, but when the green flames seized another peacekeeper and turned her to ashes, ben turned away and emptied the content of his stomach on the floor.

he tried to turn back to the screen but his mamman was already ushering him away { _but not before he saw the letters in the flames that had made his papa pale-_ _ **TOUCH HER AGAIN AND AUARDON WILL BURN**_ _\- and Mal, leaning against a pile of rubble that was once a wall, a satisfied smile on her face as she kicked the nearest body_ }.

{ _No one noticed the rhododendron petals in his vomit_ }.

On the day of his tenth birthday, the coughing became worse. throughout the year, there'd been a tickle in his throat that refused to die regardless of what the doctors prescribed, but on that day, a hacking cough had caught a hold of him.

He didn't let it deter him, though. It was his tenth birthday, and in Auradon, it meant one thing- you were given full access to the Looking Glass. You could go all by yourself, if you wanted, but on the day of your tenth birthday, your parents generally took you. Some rite of passage, passing over the torch thing. Ben was just excited about seeing the purple-haired Mal { _he was trying to put the green flames and golden visors out of his mind, but he still woke up from nightmares a lot_ }. He wanted to see her again, wanted to know all about Maleficent the second.

So, he pushed through, climbing into the royal cars and directing the drivers to the city center as his parents looked on, stifling the coughs that racked his body. Eventually { _finally_ } he stood in front of the magick mirror, his muscles tensed in nerves and his parents watching from the corner of the room. He took a deep breath and stilled his coughing long enough { _leaving his chest burning_ } to wheeze her name.

And there she was. She'd grown even more beautiful in the last year. She was pale like her mother, but her eyes were a bright green where her mother's were hazel. She was wearing purple lipstick { _he'd never seen someone his age in lipstick like hers. The most Audrey wore was a glittery lip-gloss_ } and the same jacket from a year ago. Its sleeves were pushed up, showing off a yellowing bruise on her forearm. there were other bruises around her neck too, and his blood boiled before he was forced to bend over to smother a coughing fit.

She was laughing with two boys. One was small and the other was strong, but all three of them looked like the best of friends. And she was just _so_ pretty. _Almost as pretty as her mother_ , he thought, noticing Maleficent in the corner of the room, watching her daughter play. She had her hair covered by her traditional leather, and her wings were stretched out (not to their full wingspan, but he suddenly understood why she'd wanted them back { _not that he'd ever, ever admit to understanding Maleficent. Not at all_ }). He marvelled at the detail of the Looking Glass as she blinked, and he followed a single eyelash that had clung to her cheekbone. And when her daughter threw her head back with laughter, Maleficent smiled, the burning in his chest grew, and his coughing reached a crescendo. His parents rushed over, hitting his back and calling for first aid. But then his coughs cut off as suddenly as they came. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but the horror grew in Ben's heart as he pulled his hand away from his mouth and confirmed what he'd felt. His fingers, covered in red, sticky blood, clutching a handful of crushed petals.

Even covered in blood, he could recognise the aconite.

* * *

It had been two years since he'd been to the Looking Glass. The coughing hadn't been as bad since his 10th birthday, but it was steadily growing worse. And the petals had become more and more frequent. they were rarely from the same flower (although aconite was by far the most common). But here he stood again.

The ceremony that would induct him into the courts was barely a week away, and he needed something to remind him why he'd agreed to become part of his father's council. He took a deep breath. He began to whisper her name but stopped. He was the Prince of Auradon, would soon on the royal council. he could say one name.

"Maleficent."

The mirror unfogged, but not to reveal the purple-haired fae girl. Rather, it was her mother displayed in the Looking Glass, with thick caramel hair and horns. The Queen of the Moors was running around with the children of the Isle, her red lips smiling wide. When she caught up with one, she grabbed him under his arms and swooped up into the air, taking the boy flying with her.

Ben watched for a long time, entranced as the greatest villain of all time laughed and played with a bunch of children, before managing to shake himself out of it. _Mal_ , he thought. _He was here for Mal_.

But when he looked around, she was nowhere to be seen. The Looking Glass had taken him directly to see Maleficent, skipping her daughter entirely. But he wasn't here to watch Maleficent. He needed to see her daughter, to prove to himself what he was doing was the right thing. But the magick had taken him straight to Maleficent the first, which meant that her daughter didn't respond to her name anymore. But that didn't mean he knew what to call her.

Except, he _did_. It was the nickname her mother gave her, the one name that might still work.

He was right.

When he whispered the nickname, scared it might not work, the mirror sprang to life. mal was in a hole-in-the-wall store that seemed to be selling everything from spices to scarves. She was working alongside the tall boy from two years ago. he was even bigger now, with strong muscles and long hair that he'd tied up in a bun { _Ben had never seen a boy with such long hair. He liked it, though. Thought it looked cool_ }. He had a tattoo on his collarbone too { _a collar he could_ _ **see**_ _because the Isle wasn't like Auradon, where everyone was proper and well-covered_ }, a tattoo of a magick lamp. They laughed together as they worked, sorting shelves by some unknown system. Jealousy boiled up in Ben's stomach { _he would never be allowed to laugh so hard, so loud_ }. At that moment, Ben adopted the Arabic boy as one of his own, gave the son of Jafar { _like it wasn't obvious_ } a place next to the daughter of Maleficent.

Ben stood in front of the Looking Glass for nearly an hour, following the pretty faerie all over the Isle of the Lost, shoving down the tickle in his throat. He watched until she re-joined her mother, and, knowing she was safe, he finally allowed himself to choke up the flower petals he now knew to expect and the blood he could taste in the back of his throat.

He held up a red-tinged bud to the light { _the first time a whole flower had come out_ } and tried to remember the lessons he'd asked for on flowers. _After he'd started coughing them up, he'd decided he should at least know what they were._

His first yellow tulip.

At thirteen-years-old, all his time was being split between learning how to rule (for when he took the crown _in three years_ ) and schoolwork. Today, he was sitting at a school desk in Auradon Middle, listening to the third instalment of their compulsory health class. He was about five minutes from falling asleep, and the Faerie Godmother (who the school brought in from the high school specifically for this task) was talking about lycanthropy and other magickal diseases, and his head was about to fall on the table when he heard the trail of a sentence that he recognised, "in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love."

He threw his hand up into the air to ask her to repeat the sentence. She did, with a fond sigh and a reprimand to pay more attention next time { _in the health class on the Isle of the Lost, the students sat on the desks and gossiped about who'd already had sex and Dr Facilier hadn't even shown up_ }.

"Hanahaki Disease, which originated in East Asia, is a fatal disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love," she recited to the class, looking more as if she was talking about a wedding than a fatal disease, "The symptoms of the disease are generally recognised as strong pain, flowers blooming in the heart and lungs, and, obviously, coughing them up."

Ben shuddered, thinking about what was going on in his lungs _right now_. The Faerie Godmother continued to prattle about the first known cases of the disease, but Ben couldn't think past the flowers inside him. And the information just got worse.

"There are two known cures to the Hanahaki Disease. The first is, most obviously, getting the object of your affection to love you back. I'm proud to tell you that, in all three cases we've had in Auradon, each of the victims managed to woo their partner, and all are living together, happily married," she took a deep breath and her beam faded slightly, being replaced by a subtle grimace.

"There is the option of surgery, of course. It's dangerous, with a 58% mortality rate. On top of that," she paused and took a deep breath, "a successful operation removes the flowers taking root in the victim's lungs, but also the victim's affection for their crush and, quite probably, their ability to love."

Cold shivers ran down Ben's spine, and he felt like he might throw up. He waited a moment to see if he could feel the flowers in his windpipe, and when he couldn't, he slumped into his chair, eyes closed. The Faerie Godmother was lecturing about Auradon-sponsored meet-ups and dates for Hanahaki sufferers that chose _not_ to undergo surgery, but Ben didn't care. He knew who he was in love with, and it wasn't anyone his parents would sponsor a date with. _Mal_.

 _Mal. Mal. Mal, the girl from the Isle. Mal, the daughter of Maleficent. Mal, with the purple lipstick and leather jacket and violet hair and green eyes and sharp teeth and- yeah, he slowed himself down, definitely in love with Mal. And never mind his parents, imagine Maleficent's reaction {_ _ **TOUCH HER AGAIN AND AUARDON WILL BURN**_ _}. The scary {_ _ **and sad, and stunning**_ _} faerie flashed through his mind, kneeling down to comfort her bruised daughter._

He _had_ to cough. And it wouldn't be easy to hide, not now, not after they'd just learnt about it. So he hoarsely excused himself to the bathroom and _sprinted_ down the hall to get there ("No running in the corridors!"/"Sorry!"). When he reached the bathroom, he hastily locked the door and leaned over the sink, allowing himself to hack up blood and a mouthful of flower petals { _there were one or two buds in there as well, he noted_ }.

This time, there was so much blood, he stood for nearly five minutes before he could identify the flowers and wash them down the drain.

 _Lotuses._

* * *

 **INTERLUDE:**

Maleficent could feel the eyes on her. She was one of the few residents on the Isle of the Lost that could, and even then, it was difficult to know who was watching.

{ _Not this time, though. The watcher's magickal signature was new but deadly obvious. The Princeling of Auradon carried the scent of asphodel_ }.

She stretched her wings, marvelling at the feeling of them on her back { _Fuck you, Stephan. And you too,_ _ **Sleeping Beauty**_ }. She could feel the Princeling's awe and smiled to herself. She ruffled her feathers and went to answer the door, making sure to move just _that_ much more gracefully { _show Adam nothing. Don't let him know his punishment affects you. It shouldn't._ _ **You've done nothing**_ }.

She opened the door up on an Auradonian "peace-keeper". He wore the pale blue uniform embroidered with the golden crest and the golden visor all of the peace-keepers wore to "protect their anonymity" { _more like make them invulnerable_ }. He was holding Mal { _her precious, beautiful daughter Mal who deserved so much better than the Isle of the Lost_ } by the back of her neck and she glared mutinously up at him, even with her hands locked together in front of her. She stared at him, impassive until he uncuffed her baby girl and pushed her into the house, with a parting shot about the apple and the tree { _be better to tell that to EQ_ }. Maleficent snarled behind his back.

And then she could finally get a good look at Mal. Her left eye was swollen (definitely the makings of a black eye) and there was a cut on her cheek. The handcuffs had rubbed her wrists raw and her forearms were mottled with bruises. But that couldn't be why Mal was crying, because even she, with her fearsome mother and fae heritage, had been subjected to the brutality of Auradon. So Maleficent said nothing, painfully aware of the presence of the royal family of Auradon, watching from a million miles away. Instead, she helped Mal disinfect her cuts and ice her bruises, whispering comforts when her daughter winced at the sting of alcohol { _rum, because they could afford medical alcohol_ } and reset her dislocated finger.

" _Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies._ "

And late, late that night when she and her daughter were tucked into the same single bed { _because this was what they had, what they could afford_ } she _just_ heard Mal's whispered confession that stirred up the magick in her blood and made her _swear_ revenge.

"… _and he touched me, said I deserved it, said I was just another sinner and faerie whore and that I should get used to it because I was damaged goods."_

* * *

So, yeah, his first proclamation was absolutely, entirely selfish. he'd been watching Mal for so long and he was choking up larger amounts of petals every day, and the buds were steadily becoming more open and he'd read that when he started coughing up whole flowers it was _over_.

So, brought Mal and Jafar's son (Jahin) and the white-haired boy that he'd found out was called _Carlos_ and was the Son of Cruella de Vil, and the girl that went to school with him that was a carbon copy of a young Evil Queen (there was an exhibit in the Museum of Cultural History; _**Blinded by Beauty: The Story of an Evil Queen**_ with photos from her childhood and reign over Charmington { _the exhibit focused entirely on her jealousy of Snow White, ignored the reforms that Queen Grimhilde had instituted that had bolstered the nation's economy, and the laws she'd passed implementing a national schooling system, religious freedom, housing for welfare citizens and the anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBT+ citizens_ }) and he hoped against hope that he could get Mal to fall in love with him.

He was coughing out mouthfuls of petals every day, now, mostly covered in blood and sometimes the contents of his stomach. He was steadily getting worse at Tourney, and he had a sinking feeling that he'd have to quit soon because even the asthma pump he'd picked up from the drugstore when he'd started wheezing to catch his breath wasn't helping anymore. He didn't know how much longer he could hide it, not with his blood crusted under his fingernails and petunias and red catchflies pouring from his lungs. But he persevered and tried to woo Mal and ignored that fact that he was already coughing up small, open flowers.

 _The worst day was when he pulled an entire stem of wormwood from his throat._

X

He 'woke up' in the Enchanted Lake. He could remember what had been happening, but it was like his body had been on autopilot. He'd broken up with Audrey and asked Mal to his coronation in the same breath, he thought, but that was most definitely _not_ the most significant piece of news from the last week. no, the most important thing was that _he_ _hadn't coughed once_.

He looked over to the stone structure where Mal was and wondered because he'd heard that love potions _accelerated_ the course of the disease.

But then Mal was drowning, and he had to save her, and they were talking about her life on the Isle { _and she didn't know how much he actually knew about_ _ **that**_ _life of hers_ }.

He turned away to cough and an orange rose with open petals fell into his palm.

* * *

" _Your parents can't reach you here,"_ Ben told the kids he'd brought over, and Carlos was overjoyed and Evelyn and Jahin were apathetic, but Mal's face _broke_ and he suddenly remembered when she was still Maleficent, the purple-haired little girl in a leather jacket too big for her and a swollen eye and a mother that burned down three blocks of the Isle of the Lost for her.

And then hew as just thinking about Maleficent because she was hardly three feet away from him and her wings were barely an inch from his fingers. Her cheeks were stained with tears tracks and her hair lay on her shoulders in huge tresses.

She wasn't angry that was the scariest bit. She was just sad, her eyes mourning as she looked at **Sleeping Beauty**.

Ben fell to his knees, hacking, throwing up a veritable bouquet of marigold. Vaguely, he thought he heard Mal, Jahin, Evelyn and Carlos run towards him, and his mamman and papa and the Faerie Godmother were all crouched around him, but he only had eyes for Maleficent, who had tucked her wings away and knelt by him, casting spells to save him as her eyes bored into his, and _oh_. _Oh. He'd never thought of that_.

He was still sick, and he was still about to die { _he'd had once of the worst cases of Hanahaki Disease in the world. The close proximity to the object of his affection killed him almost instantly_ } but Maleficent's hazel eyes gazed softly down at him and he whispered to her, begged her _not to hurt them_. She responded with the truth; the truth that she'd loved Stephan, and then Aurora as her own daughter, that _she'd_ woken Aurora from the curse, that she was never the evil dictator the stories remembered her as.

Ben died choking on the flowers that had been growing in his lungs since he was nine years old. He died with his love's hand in his, and when they did the autopsy the purple hyacinths and orange blossoms and burgundy roses { _and primroses, aconite, rhododendron, tulips, lotuses, wormwood, asphodel, orange roses and poppy anemone_ } that were growing in his chest and crushing his ribcage and the exonerated Maleficent in mourning for her soulmate.

* * *

" _Death is an angel sent down from above sent for the buds and the flowers we love._ _  
_ _Truly 'tis so for in heaven's own way each soul is a flower in the master's bouquet._ _  
_ _Gathering flowers for the master's bouquet beautiful flowers that will never decay._ _  
_ _Gathered by angels and carried away forever to bloom in the master's bouquet."_


End file.
